One welcome improvement to the new Google Earth over Google Earth Classic is that the user contributed photos now work. For a long time, Google Earth Classic has shown the blue dots representing user contributed photos, but dropping Pegman on them doesn’t work.

However, when you compare the blue Street View layers between the new Google Earth and Google Maps, we find there are a lot less blue dots marking user contributed photos. Below we compare the blue Street View layer around the Washington Monument (Washington DC, USA) in the new Google Earth and Google Maps.

New Google Earth.

Google Maps.

As you can see above, Google Maps has a lot more blue dots. However, if you know exactly where to drop Pegman, all the photos are still accessible in the new Google Earth, they just don’t show in the blue layer. In Google Maps and both versions of Google Earth, the blue layer changes as you zoom in and out and you see more dots as you zoom in, but one would expect that at maximum zoom you should be able to see all user contributed content. Below is a location on Table Mountain where I captured some Street View along one of the trails using a cell phone:

Left: Google Maps. Right: New Google Earth.

As you can see above, none of the blue dots show in the new Google Earth. But if you drop Pegman there, then the images do open. We thought that possibly the layer is out of date, but when we had a look at Guatemala, which got fresh Street View recently, we find that the layer is up to date in the new Google Earth.

Left: Google Maps. Right: New Google Earth.

When zoomed out there is a noticeable absence of blue dots in the new Google Earth as compared to Google Maps.

Google really needs to sort this out and give user contributed content more prominence – especially given that the new Earth does not include the popular Panoramio and 360 Cities layers from Google Earth Classic. Panoramio is set to be shut down completely in November.

One tip for exploring the blue Street View outlines layer in the new Google Earth is to drop Pegman where there is no Street View (in the middle of an ocean for example). A message appears saying “Select a location highlighted in blue to enter Street View” and until you close the message or choose to enter Street View, you can explore without the blue layer disappearing.